How, then, do 7 and 5 beat cycles operate in Indian music? Or isn't
that music?

Susan Allen

A general answer that I would give to this type of question (without
being very familiar with Indian music) is that according to my theory
each specific aspect of music corresponds to constant activity patterns
in a particular cortical map or in one region within a particular
cortical map (and the distinction obviously depends on what we consider
to be "one" cortical map, which may be somewhat arbitrary in many
cases). These aspects often correspond to particular rules, such as
"regular beat periods in musical time form a sequence where each period
is a small multiple of the next period in the sequence".

If we have determined a correspondence between such a rule and a
location in a cortical map, and then we encounter a type of music that
satisfies a slightly different rule, we can conclude that that type of
music will not cause constant activity patterns in that particular
location. But if the rule is similar, then the music may perhaps cause
constant activity patterns in some second location close to the first
one, where the representation of meaning in the second location is
moderately different from that in the first location in a way that
corresponds to the difference in the rule being satisfied.

The aspects of regular hierarchical rhythm and scales are just two of
the possible aspects of music that I presume correspond to the
occurrence of constant activity patterns in locations in cortical maps
responding to music. Other aspects include harmony (especially chords),
"home" chords, various types of repetition, and even aspects of dance
(which we normally think of as being distinct from music, but which can
be incorporated into the theory as a super-stimulus for visual aspects
of speech perception). My own analysis is restricted mainly to aspects
of musical genres and musical cultures that I am familiar with, but I
see no reason why the same principle of analysis cannot be extended to
all aspects of all types of music, so that we can thereby gain a fuller
picture of how speech "rhythm" and speech "melody" are processed in the
brain.

susan allen wrote:

How, then, do 7 and 5 beat cycles operate in Indian music? Or isn't
that music?